


On Revenge

by Raja_Myna



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Fishing, Gen, Revenge, Warning: Slight Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 18:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17986781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raja_Myna/pseuds/Raja_Myna
Summary: Ardyn Lucis Caelum is fighting for revenge against the empire that stole his home and his family from him. His destiny, however, is to gather his ancestors’ arms, forge covenants with the gods and defeat the Accursed, thereby ridding Eos of the Starscourge. If only the Accursed hadn’t vanished without a trace like hundreds of years ago.On a completely unrelated note, Ardyn runs into this strange, scruffy looking fisherman of no seeming consequence, who is living his own revenge.





	On Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the kinkmeme prompt: https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/4113.html?thread=7282961#cmt7282961. Doesn't _quite_ hit the mark, but I tried.  
> ...this might be continued.

Cutting down MTs, while therapeutic, isn’t actually doing much in practical terms. There’s always going to be more of them, more robots for the Empire to throw at Ardyn and his companions as they struggle through the day, the night, the _headache inducing visions and call to a destiny Ardyn couldn’t care less about, thank you Astrals_.

Honestly, it was like they weren’t satisfied with the Accursed disappearing and taking most daemons with him. Instead they want Ardyn to find him and kill him. _Ending the scourge upon our star_ they call it. As though Ardyn doesn’t have his own problems to deal with, revenge upon Niflheim foremost among them.

He cuts the head off of another MT and looks around for the next one, only to find that it was the last. He looks around, gazing up at the sky to see if there are any more drop ships approaching but all he can see is a never-ending expanse of blue, only interrupted by small, fluffy white clouds.

“Let’s continue to Galdin,” says he and takes a single step toward the car. His head erupts in agony and the voice of an Astral echoes through his skull.

**The Accursed remains cloaked. Time is growing short. The longer he works his wicked plans the worse humanity will suffer. Find him.**

Ardyn doesn’t come to until he’s being carried to the caravan at Galdin Quay. The sun hasn’t gone down yet, but it’s late enough that he feels completely justified in taking a pain killer and burrowing down in the bed. He ignores his friends as they try to rouse him for dinner and focuses on sleeping.

It doesn’t take long for him to drift off. Bundled up in blankets and with the Astral-induced headache buried under pain medication he’s asleep within minutes. His dreams are nonsensical as always… until he comes face to face with the draconian.

**The Accursed is close yet we cannot see him. Find him and fulfil your destiny.**

Ardyn swallows down a scream as he wakes. His friends are all sleeping and a glance at his phone tells him it’s too godsdamned early to be awake.

His head is pounding. Slowly he makes his way out of bed and over to the sink. He shivers as he pours a glass of water, wanting back to the warmth that is the cocoon of blankets that he sleeps in. A glance out of the window proves that he’s not getting back to bed just yet, however.

Out on the pier, a shape is moving. Ardyn’s first impulse is to ignore it, but his feet don’t seem to get the message. Instead he shrugs on his jacket and heads out, taking care to make as little noise as possible until he gets the caravan door closed behind him. Then he walks with purpose toward the shape on the pier.

The first thing Ardyn recognises is that whoever it is, they’re fishing. Not that unusual, the fishing is known to be good around here. The second thing he recognises is that the figure is male. The light catches on the stubble on the man’s face as he turns, obviously having heard Ardyn’s steps on the wood.

“Hey there,” says the man.

“Morning,” answers Ardyn, though it makes him feel a bit like a liar. The sun hasn’t even begun to rise yet.

“Night, you mean,” says the man and throws his line out again.

It should probably feel like a dismissal, but it doesn’t and so Ardyn remains standing while the man slowly reels the line in. No fish are biting. It doesn’t seem to bother the man.

“I’m Noct, by the way,” says the man when he’s finished pulling the line back in. “Noct Gar. Do you fish?”

“Ardyn, and no. Not really.”

“Pity.” Noct throws his line out again. “And I was already aware of your name, Your Majesty.”

The address feels like a lance of ice through his heart. _Your Majesty_. Ardyn fights to keep his expression under control. The title is… technically his now, of course, but. He’s not – he can’t –

“Ah.” Noct has stopped reeling. His voice betrays nothing as he asks, “Too soon?”

Damn straight it’s too fucking soon. Ardyn lets his silence speak for him. The inexplicable lump in his throat would have kept him from speaking even if he had felt like it.

Something dark flickers behind Noct’s eyes. “My condolences.” He starts reeling again. Tugging the lure this way and that, and suddenly there’s a pull at the line.

“Why are you here, Ardyn?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” says Ardyn, looking out at the fish struggling to get free. It jumps into the air, but that just gives Noct the opportunity to reel it even closer.

“No, I meant… why are you _here_? A resistance is building up north, they’d keep you safe… ah.”

Ardyn can feel himself twitching, and from the way Noct stops talking he notices it.

“I don’t particularly care for safe.” Bitter heat laces his words. He was sent away from Insomnia to be _safe_. Safe, unlike their people. No, he doesn’t care for it.

There’s a splash and Noct bends down to pull the fish up. It’s a large one, would probably be enough for dinner for Ardyn and his friends. Noct drops it in a large bucket filled with water and three other fishes.

“You’d rather run around out in the open, for the empire to just drop MTs on you?”

Ardyn swallows back his first retort: an impulsive claim of _I want to make them pay_ that even in his head sounds like a petulant child. It’s a part of his reason, the biggest part of it, but he is the crown prince (not king, not yet, _please_ ) and he can present a better argument than _they hurt me so I’m gonna smash their stuff_.

Even if that’s totally what he’s doing.

He is saved from having to answer by another Astral trespassing in his mind – and honestly, if he’d known that the Covenants would let them do that, he would have hesitated far more before going ahead with it.

**The little worm is near you. Slay him!**

Coming back to himself, Ardyn finds that he’s kneeling, head in his hands. Noct is looking at him with furrowed brows.

”You okay?”

”Headache,” Ardyn waves him off. “Happens every now and then.”

Noct doesn’t look like he believes him, but he throws his line out again. Ardyn takes a minute to look around. He might not be fond of the Astrals’ plans, but looking for the Accursed isn’t exactly taxing when all he has to do is turn his head a little. Just as he suspected though, all that time underwater must be getting to Leviathan’s senses, because he and Noct are completely alone. There’s not even a shadow of a speck of a daemon anywhere to be seen.

They stand in silence while Noct reels in his fifth fish of the night. It’s a little smaller this time, but Noct doesn’t seem to mind. It goes in the bucket with the rest.

“I understand wanting revenge,” says Noct, apropros of nothing. Ardyn startles.

“Pardon?”

“You’re angry, and grieving, and you want to lash out. Fortunately for the world at large, you have a target. I understand.”

“Really?”

Noct’s hand flexes around the fishing rod. “When… I was younger, I liked helping people. Eventually it – got me into trouble. There was this guy… well, these people, but specifically one of them, he had these things he wanted me to do. It would help people, a lot of people, so I said yes. And then a couple of years down the road, I got screwed over. Big time.”

“So you got revenge?” Ardyn can see how Noct understands, in that case. Their situations might not be identical, because ’screwed over’ is the least of how Ardyn feels, but the desire for venegance would be similar no matter how it came about.

“Still am,” says Noct, and Ardyn’s confusion must be visible, because he continues: “He – _they_ still had things they wanted me to do. So I said fuck that, and ran. Made sure they would never be able to find me and decided to dedicate the rest of my life to my own hedonistic pleasures.”

”Including midnight fishing at Galdin Quay.”

”Including midnight fishing at Galdin Quay.” Noct shrugs. “Some say living well is the best revenge, and well. It’s working for me. Not to say I didn’t spend time running around and wrecking his shit and being a general nuisance for a while before I settled down. It just wasn’t working for me. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Maybe you’ll have better luck running around, wrecking _their_ shit.”

He looks down at his bucket of fish. “This ought to be enough.”

Ardyn blinks at the sudden change of topic. “For what?”

The response is a self-depreciating smile. “Some bad habits are hard to break. Coctura asked a favor, and well.” He hefted the bucket. “See you around, Your Majesty.”

Ardyn is left standing alone on the pier as Noct walks away. He looks out at the sea. While he’s not sure what to make of Noct’s story, Ardyn was not made for sitting still. He’s definitely going to be out there, wrecking Niflheim’s shit.

As the light of the dawning sun dances across the waves, Ardyn swears to himself that he’s going to make damn sure he has better luck than Noct.

He glances back to the beach, but Noct is already gone.

“Huh. Fast, for an old guy.”


End file.
